In Support of Margie Carranza and Emma Hernandez - Police Gun Assault Victims

We are saddened and aggrieved by the unassailable facts that fellow industrious and innocent Independent Newspaper Carriers were the unlikely victims of over-zealous police action in Torrance, CA during the early hours of Thursday, February 7, 2013.

Press Release In Support of Margie Carranza and Emma Hernandez More than “Tragic Misinterpretation”Champaign, IL, February 12, 2013: We are saddened and aggrieved by the unassailable facts that fellow industrious and innocent Independent Newspaper Carriers were the victims of over-zealous police action in Torrance, CA during the early hours of Thursday, February 7, 2013. These actions resulted in the senseless shooting of Emma Hernandez and the wounding of Margie Carranza, as they were delivering papers along their route for the Los Angeles Times. Although in its infancy, the Independent Newspaper Carriers’ Alliance (INCA/INC-Alliance) stands in support of our fellow carriers and are committing our efforts (financial and otherwise) to provide assistance to our wrongfully assaulted and injured professional carriers.

Further, we call upon the Los Angeles Police Department to provide (along with the new truck, as reported by MSN: http://now.msn.com/lapd-promises-new-truck-to-margie-carr...) trauma counseling and other such services as may ease the healing and recovery of Margie, Emma and their families. We urge Police Chief Charlie Beck to exercise great care in referencing this incident as a mere “tragic misinterpretation,” for it is on its face a callous minimization of the chaos that Los Angeles Police Department has rained down into the lives of these business women. “Misinterpretation,” suggests that reasonable people could reasonably be expected to arrive at another “interpretation” of two women in a vehicle vs. a large black male.

Finally, it is most disturbing that the Los Angeles Times has shown so little sympathy in its scant coverage of the human interest aspect of the unfolding events of that morning (now five (5) days past). These deliberate and diligent, twilight deliverers of that which inures to your daily economic enrichment should at least be covered with the same thoughtful eagerness as you would exercise in covering the shot –by-shot grief of a mother reliving the watching of her child drown; a family appealing for information on a missing daughter or a daughter witnessing her 71 year old mother being shot.